


each scar, each story.

by minrui



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Brief mentions of alcoholism, F/F, F/M, Unbeta'ed, brief mentions of dramione, i wrote this in 2018 but i finally finished it now bc i was procrastinating, mentions of drug usage & throwing up, my first work wow, pansy has great friends !!, pansy learns to love herself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-18 22:32:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19343998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minrui/pseuds/minrui
Summary: Pansy Parkinson is an empowered woman, living and regretting and enjoying with each breath. She’s a former Slytherin, but still as cunning, vivacious and stunning. She had four failed romances. And each had left a scar on her, a lesson, to be learnt and relearnt and unlearnt. Contrary to what others might think, she fell hard, deep and fast. But each had their own story. And this is her story to tell.— “she was more than a beautiful girl. she was opalescent, sparkling, iridescent. she shone.”





	each scar, each story.

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [ugly: in defense of pansy parkinson](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2330390) by [dirgewithoutmusic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirgewithoutmusic/pseuds/dirgewithoutmusic). 



> inspired by https://archiveofourown.org/works/2330390  
> huge kudos to dirgewithoutmusic who created such a lovely piece for us pansy lovers !!
> 
> t/w: there is brief mentions of alcoholism and mentions of drug usage & throwing up,, please don't read it if you are uncomfortable!
> 
> a/n: also this is my very first fic so i'm not very sure how to tag so please just inform me in the comments if there are any mistakes thank you !!

Pansy Parkinson is an empowered woman, living and regretting and enjoying with each breath.

 

She’s a former Slytherin, but still as cunning, vivacious and stunning.

 

She had four failed romances. And each had left a scar on her, a lesson, to be learnt and relearnt and unlearnt. Contrary to what others might think, she fell hard, deep, and fast. But each had their own story.

 

And this is her story to tell.

 

\--

 

January 1997- June 1997

  
It was her sixth year, and she had her first-ever romance.

 

She had thought he would be the person she was meant to marry and live with forever.

 

“Merlin, he’s like an angel, fit, handsome, everything one could dream of,” she’ll say to her friends, sounding so, very in love. “When his soft blonde hair falls into his face, he looks so heavenly,” she’ll recount happily in her dormitory after the night of the Halloween Feast.

 

She’ll conveniently leave out the part of his hands being so cold they shook, trembling violently even when she held his hand.

 

The late nights where he’s silently crying, tears making his face crumple, eyes redden, slowly choking with the pressure placed on him.

 

The times she had to force-feed him food so he’ll eat and not collapse in hallways on the way to class.

 

The times she learnt to be strong for both of them.

 

They ended things before his escape from Hogwarts, before that fateful, fateful night, when Death Eaters stormed the castle.

 

From this, she learnt to have strength, to have courage, to resist against anything and anyone who wanted to change her.

 

When he left, she didn’t cry.

 

She had already known, and accepted a long time ago, she probably won’t spend forever with him.

 

She threw herself into work, determined to be able to master curses, hexes, jinxes, protective charms for the imminent war. She had to, it’s her duty, one she’ll bear without complaints, protecting her house. The little first years who will inevitably get caught in the crossfire.

 

She’s a prefect, after all.

 

\--

 

February 1998- March 1998

 

She didn’t fall for him initially.

 

She thought he was a man-whore, he thought she was weak, a typical pureblood girl.

 

They became friends with benefits after a drunken tryst, but eventually, she fell for him. Hard.

 

He has a darker complexion, the exact opposite of her first lover, with an utterly divine body.

 

“Your lips are sweet. Like tangerine,” she giggled to him after a couple drinks of firewhiskey in the Room of Requirement.

 

Low firelight, glass tumbler in hand, she felt like she could take over the world when he leaned over and kissed her, till her toes curled and her legs turned into jelly.

 

She whispered the l-word when they fucked later that night, thinking he would too, but he left in the morning with a note, telling him that he didn’t feel that he was ready to have a committed relationship, and could she wait for him please, because he thinks he probably likes her too.

 

Alone with an empty bed, aching and sweaty and her hair a tangled mess, she walked ’The Walk of Shame’ back to her dorm passively, cool, calm, and collected.

 

Down the stairs, into her dorm.

 

Drew the curtains shut, casted a silencio around her bed.

 

She tore the paper, cutting it to shreds with well-executed diffindos, incendioed and vanished the ashes.

 

Chopped off her hair with a clean flick of her wrist, then planned more escape routes around the castle, for the Carrows don’t really care who they’re torturing, purebloods or halfbloods or muggleborns.

 

She has a duty to protect the little snakes too.

 

She learnt a valuable lesson from this one-sided crash and burn romance: never give away your heart so easily.

 

She violated Slytherin rule numero uno: trust no one, and ended up paying the price for it.

 

It turned her into a cold person, more suspicious and less trusting, looking twice before jumping.

 

She vowed never to open her heart first ever again.

 

And that was the end of this relationship.

 

\--

 

June 1999- November 1999

 

After the war, with her father awaiting trial in Azkaban, her mother dying in St Mungo’s, and her ancestral home confiscated by the hastily set-up Ministry, she stayed with one of her childhood friend in her flat.

 

They were already close, and it was after a night of drunk snogging that made her realise she wasn’t exactly ‘straight’, not really.

 

They spent the whole of the next day casting covert places at each other, hoping the other could have the guts to confess their feelings.

 

But she couldn’t. Not after her previous relationship.

 

After all, they’re both Slytherin cowards, each having an adversity to sharing their feelings, their sense of self-preservation, and pride too strong.

 

In the process of gathering her confusing thoughts together, her blonde beauty bombshell roommate fell into a downward spiral of drug usage.

 

She only knew of it after her death.

 

Cocaine, mixed with hard liquor, took her life at a shady pub, leaving her oesophagus ruptured. The healers explained she had Boerhaave’s syndrome, usually seen in alcoholics who regularly upchuck after drinking too much, vomiting forcefully enough that can result in the tearing of the oesophagus.

 

She could only sit there mutely, stunned, as her world came crashing down- the one person she needed was dead, what’s the meaning of life anyway?

 

I’m desperate for you, she wished she had said, so that she would have never had to wonder before drawing her final breath.

 

The importance of valuing life: another lesson.

 

Life is only temporary, and fuck it all if she managed to survive all the shit the universe had threw her way, she only wants her, her and only her.

 

She leaves her heart behind in the morgue.

 

No more.

She flees Britain.

 

\--

 

December 2000- May 2003

 

Almost a year has passed since then.

 

She moved to America, where few people knew her name, and fewer knew her past.

 

Stayed mostly in downtown muggle areas, to minimise further chances of being noticed.

 

You can imagine her shock when she sees the-boy-who-lived, saviour-of-the-wizarding-world, last-person-she-would-expect-to-see-in-America, in the middle of the street where she usually worked.

 

Apparently, he spotted her too, calling out her name and chasing after he when she pretended not to hear him.

 

He stutters and she snarls at him to leave her alone.

 

And to her surprise, he did.

 

But the next day, he came back to the small bistro she worked at, the day after, and the day after after.

 

He keeps coming in, she keeps shutting him out, and yet she couldn’t help the little flutter in her stomach when he smiles at people, green eyes blazing when he looks at her, messing up his hair each time he read something that caught his interest in the paper.

 

When he finally talked to her, it was on the third anniversary of the war, when he dragged her to an alley after her shift and asked her about what she’s been doing after the war-that-fucked-everyone-up.

 

Scoffing bitterly, she sat down on the grimy floor and ranted to him, of all persons.

 

That night, they kissed.

 

It was chaste, but it was sweet, it was passionate.

 

They lived their secret life of being together, acting indifferent out in public but always exchanging side-along glances that were filled with unspoken promises.

 

All was peaceful, a simple paradise-like life that she had gotten used to, until a Sunday when she was cleaning the house and discovered an engagement ring in his drawer.

 

She freaks out and confronts him about it, insisting she was too young to get married.

 

It was their first argument since their Hogwarts years.

 

He left.

 

For the first time in years, she cried.

 

She wasn’t even sure why she was crying.

 

But she knew, because of her harsh words and biting comments during their argument, she might never be able to reconcile with him ever again.

 

And for that, she’s terrified of the future and her life.

 

Who had she became? (She isn’t sure anymore.)

What is her life now? (She doesn’t know.)

When will she be okay? (Never. Some scars you have to bear for life.)

 

\--

 

October 2007 (present-day)

 

She hasn’t dated anyone for a long time now.

 

She isn’t bitter, technically, but after getting an invite to a Granger-Malfoy wedding in the summer of 2005, she felt that small twinge of envy, of jealousy, of longing to be taken cared of by another person.

 

She RSVP-ed the invite — it’s the wedding of the century! Who won’t? — and drank fruity champagnes and danced her way around with her former Slytherin housemates.

 

She had to say, she missed the idea of love. Maybe not love itself, for she learnt to appreciate the simplicity of just being by herself and enjoying life.

 

No, what she missed was having someone being there for her when she feels down or tired, but she managed.

 

Her new friends - Hermione, Ginny, Luna, Astoria, Hannah, Susan, and Millicent - they were the anchors for her when things get too rough, too draining. And she’s glad.

 

Maybe she isn’t suited for love, maybe she hasn’t found the one yet, but what she found was definitely more important: learning experiences and friends that love her for who she is, and not who she was portrayed to be.

 

Each scar left on her had their own story, but through this long journey, she learnt how to love herself, and that was enough.

 

\--

 

—“she was more than a beautiful girl. she was opalescent, sparkling, iridescent. she shone.”


End file.
